Proxmox - SPICE Client setup for MacOS

README.md

Proxmox - SPICE client setup for MacOS

1. Install a working (and compiled) version of virt-viewer. You may view the homebrew package's upstream source on GitHub.

   brew tap jeffreywildman/homebrew-virt-manager
   brew install virt-viewer

2. Once that's installed should be able make a call remote-viewer with a pve-spice.vv file downloaded from proxmox web interface

   remote-viewer pve-spice.vv

   Check out this useful script for debugging. There are also several other cli tools like this one on GitHub that can be used to test the same sort of thing.

Improving Quality of Life

We want remote-viewer to automatically start and open the session when we double click the VM entry in proxmox. To do that we need to first create a small helper application.

1. Launch Automator and select Application from the dropdown list, when prompted.

   

2. Search for shell and drag to the right. The contents:

   /usr/local/bin/remote-viewer "$@"

   Make sure to select as arguments for passing the input. Save as ~/Applications/pve-spice-launcher.app.

   

3. Locate a pve-spice.vv file and right click, and go to Get Info -> Open With -> Change All, look for the .app file you just made.

   

4. In Chrome, click on the small arrow on the list of downloads at the bottom, and select "Always open files of this type"

   

5. If everything is set up correctly you should be able to double-click on the VM in the left pane of Proxmox and remote-viewer should start up and take care of the rest.

   Note: the pve-spice.vv files will be automatically deleted by remote-viewer

   

   

Enjoy!

pve-spice.sh

#!/usr/bin/env bash

set -e

# needs pve-manager >= 3.1-44

usage() { 
    echo "Usage: $0 [-u <string>] [-p <string>] vmid [node [proxy]]"
    echo
    echo "-u username. Default root@pam"
    echo "-p password. Default ''"
    echo
    echo "vmid: id for VM"
    echo "node: Proxmox cluster node name"
    echo "proxy: DNS or IP (use <node> as default)"
    exit 1
}

PASSWORD=""
USERNAME=""

while getopts ":u:p:" o; do
    case "${o}" in
        u)
            USERNAME="${OPTARG}"
            ;;
        p)
            PASSWORD="${OPTARG}"
            ;;
        *)
            usage
            ;;
    esac
done

shift $((OPTIND-1))

if [[ -z "$PASSWORD" ]]; then
    PASSWORD=""
fi
if [[ -z "$USERNAME" ]]; then
    USERNAME='root@pam'
fi

DEFAULTHOST="$(hostname -f)"

# select VM
[[ -z "$1" ]] && usage
VMID="$1"

#[[ -z "$2" ]] && usage
NODE="${2:-$DEFAULTHOST}"

if [[ -z "$3" ]]; then
    PROXY="$NODE"
else
    PROXY="$3"
fi

NODE="${NODE%%\.*}"

DATA="$(curl -f -s -S -k --data-urlencode "username=$USERNAME" --data-urlencode "password=$PASSWORD" "https://$PROXY:8006/api2/json/access/ticket")"

echo "AUTH OK"

TICKET="${DATA//\"/}"
TICKET="${TICKET##*ticket:}"
TICKET="${TICKET%%,*}"
TICKET="${TICKET%%\}*}"

CSRF="${DATA//\"/}"
CSRF="${CSRF##*CSRFPreventionToken:}"
CSRF="${CSRF%%,*}"
CSRF="${CSRF%%\}*}"

curl -f -s -S -k -b "PVEAuthCookie=$TICKET" -H "CSRFPreventionToken: $CSRF" "https://$PROXY:8006/api2/spiceconfig/nodes/$NODE/qemu/$VMID/spiceproxy" -d "proxy=$PROXY" > $NODE-$VMID.vv

exec remote-viewer $NODE-$VMID.vv

yes, there seems to be no problem with multi-monitoring... I turn on the second monitor and can move firefox to the other display

I can do several tests for you on my mac, just let me know.

Is the mouse in sync ?
If i connect to an ovirt 4.3 vm using encryption and the spice protocol, my mouse is not in sync.
But this could be because of the nature of the spice protocol compatibility issues and "ancient" ovirt 4.3 ;-)

I don't have problem with mouse sync.
What I've noticed that share clipboard is not work properly. From Spice to host I can copy but from host to Spice not :(

I don't have problem with mouse sync. What I've noticed that share clipboard is not work properly. From Spice to host I can copy but from host to Spice not :(

For that to work, you've to install spice-vdagent.
Docs:
https://www.spice-space.org/spice-user-manual.html#agent

Today i started my "cross compile challenge" for arm64e support.
About 30% done so far. (base and dep libs)
Will keep you informed…

Please report back.

Thank you, works for me on Ventura but crash happens when I copy text inside vm:
Gdk:ERROR:../../../../spice-jhbuild/source/gtk+-3.24.36/gdk/quartz/gdkeventloop-quartz.c:585:select_thread_collect_poll: assertion failed: (ufds[i].fd == current_pollfds[i].fd) Bail out! Gdk:ERROR:../../../../spice-jhbuild/source/gtk+-3.24.36/gdk/quartz/gdkeventloop-quartz.c:585:select_thread_collect_poll: assertion failed: (ufds[i].fd == current_pollfds[i].fd) RemoteViewer.app/Contents/MacOS/RemoteViewer: line 107: 82349 Abort trap: 6 "$bundle_contents/MacOS/$name-bin" "$@" $EXTRA_ARGS
Also clipboard sharing from macos to guest doesn't work.

Since the assertion failed, there must a problem with the poll syscall in the vda agent plugin.
Are you using the vda agent in the vm ?
Check using dmesg on the vm side if there's a segfault…
Same issue already reported: jeffreywildman/homebrew-virt-manager#204
I will test it on my own, but not until next week…
I'm quite busy at the moment…

There are some patch which could be applied to gtk+ version 3.24.
There were some changes to the UI in gdkevents-quartz.c.
Not sure when i've time for that to patch, compile and test. (takes a lot of time ;-) )

Hi again, i uploaded the App on my private cloud: https://wolke.dah.am/s/pbK73ZAXxpaskis It's compiled only for x86_64. The porting to AARCH64 is work in progress (>= 20%) . (Many header files must be patched) Tested OS: 12.x and 13.x x86_64 Please report back.

Since there's suspicious traffic, i'm adding the SH256 of the ZIP file here.
d21d6003f57935b275b1190a3405cbf65931d35aacaf8d360a51372aa40b3279

Check before running the app !